Whether your event is small or large in scale, budget always plays a huge factor in many of the decisions made throughout the event planning process. While some of the costs incurred for your event are minimal, others could become much larger than anticipated… especially when it comes to your audio-visual production needs. However, did you know that by bringing your audio-visual production partner into the fold before you even have a venue selected could actually save you a significant amount of money?
Yep, you read that right. Just like purchasing a car, house or other large purchases, timing is everything and many things can be negotiated before you sign the contract.
How many times have you received the rigging quote for your production and thought, “oh my! That’s a significant amount of money!”? We’ll assume most of you have. But did you know that in some cases, you can negotiate the rigging cost prior to committing your business to that hotel?
Similar to rigging, power charges can creep up during pre-planning and become an unforeseen cost that you didn’t account for, especially in some hotels that charge for power in their smaller breakout rooms. Once again, having your production partner there to make note of these costs and help you to negotiate them can prevent you from having to search for additional money in the budget to handle these costs.
Finally, how about those pesky “supervision fees”? We completely understand, it is in the hotels best interest to make sure that all outside vendors leave the hotel looking the same way it did when they arrived. However, it can sure be frustrating to allocate a couple thousand dollars towards paying for an individual who may sit and watch your production company during load in and load out, choosing to add no value. Wouldn’t those costs be better utilized elsewhere for your event? Once again, your trusted production partner can help negotiate the costs down or completely out!
In short, as a meeting planner, you should always feel like you can turn to your production partner to advise you on matters that can be beneficial to the success of your event! Providing consult to our clients not only allows us to continue to build upon the relationship, but it also helps us to provide a certainty of outcome that makes our clients look like the rock stars they are!
Your event is a reflection of your brand and company culture, so take this opportunity to design the best experience and leave a lasting impression. For questions or assistance with your next big event, feel free to reach out to our AVmedia family. AVmedia is known for its international production and creative services team, as well as its growing on-site audio visual and production services arm that is focused on changing the stigma around what people think about “in-house AV.”